Semiconductor components comprising surface metallization are known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 5,081,520. Disclosed therein is a semiconductor component having a semiconductor body and a substrate, and comprising on its principal faces surface metallizations in the form of conductive path structures. The semiconductor body is contacted via a subregion of the conductive path structures. Another subregion of the conductive path structures serves as the connecting region of the component.
Such connection surfaces realized as surface metallization are also used in so-called MID (Molded Interconnected Device) technology and CIMID (Chip-Integrated Molded Interconnected Device) technology, as is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,929,516, for example.
As can be seen from U.S. Pat. No. 5,081,520, the connection surfaces are ordinarily realized near the outer edges of the package or substrate. A known connection pattern consists, for example, in arranging the connection surfaces in two parallel rows extending along two opposite outer edges of the case.
A disadvantage of this arrangement is that when components of the aforesaid type have been soldered in, the solder connections readily tear away when the component is exposed to a temperature-change load. Such temperature-change loads can occur during normal operation, for example due to seasonal changes in outside temperature, during quality-control operations such as temperature-change testing and temperature shock, or during the soldering process itself.